Samsung Galaxy S5 apps leaked: S Note, WatchON, Gear Manager, and more [APK]

There’s less than a month before the Galaxy S5 launches worldwide in more than 150 markets, and as tradition would dictate, some of the apps from the upcoming flagship have been leaked online. An XDA forum member has leaked the APK files for numerous Samsung apps from the S5, with the full list including S Note, WatchON, Gear Manager, Gear Fit Manager, Calculator, S Health, and S Translator. As we exclusively reported before the S5 was announced, all of these apps sport revamped interfaces with a flatter and cleaner look, and you should be able to use them on existing devices like the Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note 3, though you’ll likely need to be using Android 4.4.2 KitKat for these apps to work.

Users on XDA report that S Health isn’t working, but the rest of the apps should work pretty well. All of them can be installed as normal APK files, though you might need to uninstall/freeze previous versions of some apps in order to get them to install successfully (which, if you hadn’t already guessed, require root access.) Oh, and naturally, the Gear Fit Manager app won’t be too useful unless you somehow have a Gear Fit in your possession, though you can still give it a visual walkthrough if you so desire.

Head over to this link to download the APK files for the aforementioned apps.

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Samsung Galaxy S4 production cost estimated at $244

In its usual fashion, IHS iSupply has posted its virtual teardown of the Galaxy S4 revealing an estimate of its bill of materials (BOM). The company believes that the materials for the HSPA+ version of the Galaxy S4 costs $236, which when added to the manufacturing cost, give a total production cost of $244.

This marks a 15% increase, or $30.40, over the BOM of the Samsung Galaxy S III, which is due to the costlier Super AMOLED FullHD display, additional sensors and the Exynos Octa CPU of the S4.

As you can see from the table above, the Galaxy S4's new Super AMOLED FullHD display and touch-screen are estimated to cost $75.00 - $10 more than the 720p Super AMOLED display of the Galaxy S III. As for the new Exynos 5410 Octa chipset with quad-core Cortex-A15 and Cortex-A7 CPUs, IHS iSuppli estimates it to cost Samsung $30.00 to make. That's almost double the price of the quad-core Cortex-A9 Exynos 4410 chipset that powers the Galaxy S III carries ($17.50).

The materials for the LTE variation of the Samsung Galaxy S4 are $3 cheaper than the HSPA+ version, at $233 BOM and $241 with manufacturing included. The reason is the Snapdragon 600 ticking inside that Galaxy S4 version, which only costs Samsung $20.00 a pop.

Interestingly, the Galaxy S4's 13MP and 2MP camera bundle adds just $1 on top of the 8MP + 1.9MP combo of the Galaxy S III, which was estimated to cost $19.00 back in September last year. You should keep in mind that manufacturing expenses don't include additional charges such as licensing and royalties.

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